Luther, Justification and Me

Yesterday i read a prayer letter from some dear friends. It mentioned that part of their new year routine was to get up earlier in the morning to spend more time reading the Bible before going to work. Amen, i'm there with you.

The only 'resolution' i made this year was to get up at 6am, so i could have a longer quiet time before heading off to work. Edwards probably wasn't joking when he said Christ recommended getting up early by rising early on the third day. Now 6am isn't very early by Pitt County standards, but it is only shortly after the time i'd go to bed in my student days, so it still presents a challenge to my motivation and discipline. 

So far all's been going well. I have my coffee, a chapter of 'What Jesus demands from the world' some prayer, my Bible schedule (leviticus and matthew at the moment) and then some of whatever book is next in Teen Church (Colossians at the moment). After this i go to work happy, satisfied, ready.

This morning, my time was unavoidably interrupted. Interrupted is the wrong word, cut short perhaps would be better. But anyway, i was out of routine. And here's the challenge that represents to me, how much is my standing with God based on what i do between 6-730 each morning.

I'm told that on his desk Luther had written something like 'Ex baptisma' meaning, 'i am baptised'. This was to remind him that his salvation was out side of himself. That his justification depended on something that he had not done. Not 'being baptised', that was his way of remembering the life, death and ressurection of Christ on his behalf. Luther knew that whatever he was doing, telling Melanchthon he hadn't sinned enough, building his bowling alley, or throwing an ink well at the Devil, he was safe, he was secure, his justification was outside of him.

I'd love to say that my quiet times leave happy, satisfied and ready because because my heart is filled by the glory of the Gospel of the happy God each morning. But more often than not, i'm happy because i can tick a box, i can file away 'devotions' for another morning. Justification by quiet time is the great evangelicalism of my generation. 

So on a flustered, irregular morning, what does Luther remind me? That i am a son of God through faith in Christ (Gal 3:26). And that is enough.

Depending on God (ii)

So the question becomes, ‘how?’ how can we depend on Jesus? what does that sort of life look like? James tells us in 4:15. ‘instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that.’ Again the sin issue here is not planning the future, it’s not planning a future with God at it’s centre. Instead of saying we will go here, we should say, if God wills it, we will go here. If God allows us we will go here, if God is for the idea, we will do it. We must learn to depend on God because our lives are in God’s hands. We only live physically because God wills it. God wills that our brain tells ou heart to pump blood around our body. God wills that we don’t fall down dead. And it’s only by God that we live spiritually. God gives us our salvation that He had bought, we don’t earn it, it’s from God.

Do you try to remember that on a daily basis? Do you try to remember that your life is wholly in God’s hands? Paul did regularly. In Acts 18:21 he writes, ‘I will return to you again, if the Lord wills.’ In 1 Corinthians 4:19 he writes, ‘I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills.’ He knew that His life was totally in God’s hands, and He depended on God because of it.

James says we will live and we will do. When we do, we do with God as the focus. All our activities and all our accomplishments are in God’s hands. Not yours. Not your parents. Not your teachers. God’s. Ephesians 2:10 says that God has prepared good works for us to walk in beforehand. And if we depend on God we are immortal until we are finished with those works. Paul had preached the Gospel to the ends of the Earth, and he died, Stephen preached the Gospel to the leading Jews, and he died.

Only as you depend on God will you life a live worth living, and doing things worth doing.  So are you depending on God? Or are you like the businessman in verse 13, distant from God and not relating anything you do to Him? Make your plans, make bold plans, challenging plans, exciting plans, but make sure you depend on God for the success of your plans. Make sure you depend on God as you make your plans.

And remember, as you live, work, rest and play, how secure you are. Isn’t it wonderful  to know that it’s God who governs our future not our enemies, not nature, not chance, not us, but our good, Heavenly Father. Why would we want to depend on anyone, or anything else?

Depending on God (i)

James writes in chapter 4:13 the phrase ‘come now,’ which means pay attention, or listen up. It’s the only time this phrase is used in the Bible, so we know he’s about to say something important. Who is he talking to? Remember his letter is written to Christians who live a long way from home, who are struggling to stay faithful to Jesus in a world that is against Him. Maybe that describes some of you. Maybe your Christian life started off great, but now it’s a struggle, maybe you’re more excited by the world than the Word. Well then James is the man for you! James is specifically addressing businessmen here, but the point stands for us all. These men are making a plan to travel, work and earn money. They’ve got the time worked out, they’ve got the place worked out, and they’ve got their work worked out. These guys are sorted. They are the classic, 21st century, secular American, relying on themselves. And this is the problem. James doesn’t tell us the problem is that they planned, but that they made no room for God in their plan. They never asked Him, they never looked to Him, they never thought about Him.

Maybe that’s our big problem. Not so much that we commit sin, that we get angry, and lazy, and lustful, and proud, but that we live our lives with so little dependence on God. We are so far from God just in the course of our normal day to day decision making that we hardly ever even think about Him. We’re like David, who despised the Word of the Lord when he sinned with Bathsheba. That wasn’t his intention, but he made decisions with no reference to God’s will, he didn’t depend on God, and Nathan told him that he had despised God.

Who do you depend on? James gives us three reasons why we shouldn’t depend on ourselves and one reason why we should depend on God.

Verse 14 tells us that depending on ourselves is foolish. James tells us that we are a vapour, a breath. We are morning mist that vanishes. We hate to think of this. We are men, we are the captains of our fate, we are in control right? We build cities and expect them to last forever, we build new philosophies and threaten anyone who disagrees. But we’re vapour. We’re fragile, our time is short, and life will go on without us. So depending on ourselves rather than God, the great rock solid reality of life, is foolish.

Verse 16 tells us that to rely on ourselves is boastful and arrogant. Those aren’t compliments. We may not walked around with our chests puffed out saying ‘I don’t need God,’ but if you never pray, if you never open the Bible, if you never ask for wisdom, you may as well be. Then James tells us that it’s even worse than boastful and arrogant, it’s evil. Evil. Evil to rely on yourself not God. That was the original evil, the original sin, Adam and Eve relied on their own judgment, their own eyes instead of the Lord. How often do you ask God for help? How often do you run your plans past Him?

Then we learn, from verse 17, the depending on ourselves and not God is sinful. Living life with no reference to God, even a life of church attendance and Bible reading and good grades in a Christian school, is sinful. You’ve probably worked it out, but James drives it home. You know the right thing to do, to listen to God, and look to God, and depend on God, and you don’t do it. That’s a sin. Jesus doesn’t take your lack of attention lightly. To not depend on Jesus is the biggest way you can insult Him. He doesn’t want to be your co-pilot, He’s in the driver’s seat and you’re in the sick bay. He’s flying the plane home through a storm while you hold on for dear life. don’t ignore Him, depend on Him.

Belief

In respect to the whole matter of evidence and belief, it is important to remember the relationship between belief and disbelief. As regards many truths of Christianity, he who disregards them is compelled to believe something that takes their place. He who cannot accept difficulties, real or alleged, in the Christian evidences must not forget the difficulties of infidelity.We must believe something, must believe something about the problem of religion, and if we go away from Christ, 'to whom shall we go?'

John Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, P155

The Turning Point

James 4:1-12 asks us what excites us. Out of his pastoral concern for the Christians spread far and wide from the spiritual home, James writes a letter with 12 tests, to help them examine their faith. What get's us excited? Today i'm excited about closing on our new home in a couple of weeks, less excited about packing up everything into boxes this weekend. But am i as excited about openin by Bible tomorrow as opening that front door at the end of the month?

James tells us that when we're excited about the world, more than Jesus our prayer life goes haywire. We don't get what we want, because we don't ask, and even when we do ask, we ask wrongly, 'to spend it on our passions.'

When we do this, we are cheating on God. That’s what verses 4 tells us. ‘you adulterous people.’ Isn’t that what adultery is? Going behind the back of the person you said you’d love and be faithful to? Using a spouse for what you can gain from them while you chase other loves? When we are friends with the world, when we use God to get what we want in the world, we are spiritual adulterers. That’s pretty shocking isn’t it? Well it gets even worse, James says that if we’re friends with the world, if we’re going behind God’s back and having a relationship with the world when we said we’d be faithful to Him, we are His enemies. His enemies. James doesn't pull any punches does he?

So what does God do to these enemies and adulterers? We think we know the answer don’t we? We think that He’d judge them, cast them off, throw them in the lake of fire. But what do verses 5 and 6 tell us? He yearns jealously over the spirit He has made to dwell within them. When God’s people are more excited about the world than they should be, God yearns for them. When you’re far from God, He wants you to come home, He is passionate about you. And He gives you more grace. Friends, there is always more grace. More grace in God than sin in you, and if you’re anything like me, there is a lot of sin in you!

God's grace is the turning point in this passage, as it's the turning point in your life.

This is the grace that gives us an excitement about the things of God. It makes us excited to open our Bibles, excited to be at church, excited to share our faith. Three times in these verses James tell us that being passionate about God makes us humble. Humility is what happens when we know that God is God and we are not, and that we are helpless without Him. We know that our hands are empty. And because we know that we show our humility by submitting to God. By obeying Him, by asking for His help, by accepting that at all times, in all seasons and in all ways He knows best. If you’re humble you’re submitting. If you have a hard time following God and submitting to God, you need to pray for that humility.

And what does a life full of humble submissive excitement look like? An endless string of mission adventures and angelic visions? No, says James, in verses 11-12 it looks like loving your brother and listening to the Bible. Much more mundane, much more Christlike!

Preaching's Objective

Perhaps the first objective of preaching is to please God. A sermon should first be an offering to God. A minister studies God's Word, prepares a message, and then first gives it to God in an act of worship. This has implications for discipline and preparation. A second objective is the salvation of souls. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. The preacher tries to bring a saving Gospel and lost souls together. He is also to edify the church and to help his people mature in Christ through his preaching.

On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, John Broadus, Pp49-50

Children of the Light (iii)

I love the start of verse 9, ‘God hath not appointed us to wrath.’ If you have faith in Jesus Christ this morning, if you’re in the day, not the night, then God has not appointed you to wrath! That should  stun us, it should amaze us, it should knock the wind out of us. We should stand on our heads for joy because we...sinners like you and me, after all we’ve said, and all we’ve done, and all we’ve thought, we will not face the wrath of God that we deserve.

We’ve wasted our Father’s substance in the far city, and we come dragging our heels home, expecting the worst, and He comes out of the house running, and gives us new clothes, and new shoes, and calls for a feast. If we have faith in Christ, a different nature, different behavior, we are appointed to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ who died for us. As Christians we need to come back to this truth early and often. There ought never to be a day when we don’t thank Jesus for dying on the cross for our sins, and walking out of the tomb three days later. We should never lose sight of the glorious Gospel. Not ever.

And one day, the end of verse 10 promises us, we’ll live together with Him. We’ll live in Heaven. No sorrow, no tears, no sickness, no regrets, no misunderstandings, no nighttime, drunkenness, no sin. Just Jesus, and Him forever.

That last verse tells us to comfort and encourage each other with the truth of Heaven. We’ve all heard the knock on Christians that what we believe is just ‘pie in the sky when you die,’ we’re too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. Well, if your mind is not fixed on Heaven, you won’t be any use on Earth. The hope of Heaven is our comfort at the graveside, at the hospital bed. It makes the good days sweeter and the bad days bearable. The hope of Heaven gives us our new nature, and makes sense of our different behavior.

So how about you this morning? Do you recognize yourself in the description of people who live in the day? Are you awake, or have you dozed off? Are you sober, or getting drunk on worldly pleasures? Do you feel like you’re wondering around lost, or is the Word guiding your way? Maybe you need to get saved, or maybe you need to start living like you are saved once more. Whatever you need, you need Jesus, because He has it. Let’s go to Him now.

Children of the Light (ii)

Secondly, Paul tells us that if we live in the day, we behave differently. Christianity isn’t just doing things differently, but it’s not less than that. John MacArthur says that being a Christian involves a radical moral change. We behave differently. Look at verses 6-8 with me.

What’s Paul saying? Don’t sleep, watch. Don’t doze off at your post, like the disciples in Gethsemene, but watch. Look out for the dawn, look out for the second coming. Don’t be caught off guard, don’t sleep, watch. Don’t be lulled away by the devil’s lullaby that the world sings. Stay awake! And be sober. Is your life sober? Not just in terms of alcohol, but in terms of it’s direction?

Verse 7 tells us that it’s people who live in darkness who sleep and get drunk, but we watch, and we’re sober. The core of our life’s behavior is watchful and sober. We’re watchful over our spending, because God gives us money so that we can show that we love God more than money. We’re watchful over how we spend our time, because life is short and eternity is long. We’re watchful over our viewing habits, because the devil can use anything to inflame our lusts. We’re watchful over our kids, because God didn’t give teenagers common sense, He gave them parents.

A sober person is self controlled, balanced, calm and steady. They have the right priorities.

But we’re not alone in this fight for spiritual sobriety. We’re armed, we’ve been given protection. Look at verse 8 with me. We have a breastplate and a helmet. We have faith, love and hope. The breastplate goes over our hearts. What’s in the heart of our new behavior? Faith and love. Faith in God, and love to man. Faith that no matter what happens, God is good, and God is in control. We didn’t use to behave like that when we were in the dark, we used to behave like we were God, like we were in control, like we were all that mattered, but now, our hearts have faith in God. And our hearts have love to man. Jesus told us that people would know we love Him because we love each other.  This is daytime behavior, loving people. In the darkness we love people because of what they can do for us. We love people who we think are worth loving. But in the light, we serve all, we love all, we help all.

And we have a helmet to guard our heads, to guard our thoughts. It’s a helmet of hope. This helmet gives us hope when everyone around us is losing theirs. It means we know how the world will turn out, we know how the story ends.

Is your behavior watchful and sober? Are your hearts filled with love and faith? Your mind with hope? Do you have a new nature, a new behavior.

If you can answer those questions yes, then verses 9-11 tells us that we have a different destiny. 

Children of the Light (i)

I have a terrible confession to make. I’m one of those morning people. Maybe you’ve seen our kind on the way to work, at the drive though line, dropping your kids off at school It’s 730 and we’re smiling, the sun isn’t up yet, and we’re cheerful. What can i say? On behalf of all morning people, we’re sorry, and we’re trying to do better.

I love the mornings. Especially this time of the year when the sun is slowly coming up, and the colours are slowly changing. God is good to give us a world where we don’t just flick a switch and get daylight, but where changes comes slowly, and beautifully.

And we live in a world with lots of different shades don’t we? Different shades of political affiliation, hard Republican to hard Democrat and everywhere in between. We live in a world with different shades of sporting support, whether it’s red, or dark blue or purple and gold. We live in a world of varying shades of religious belief, from the atheist who claims to hate God, even though he doesn’t believe in him, to the pantheist, the polytheist, all the way to those of us here this morning, and all around the world who worship Jesus.

That example is an interesting one isn’t it? In 2014 we love to see religious belief as a spectrum, as a group of people on different paths up the same mountain. This is my truth, tell me yours. But the Bible makes clear than when it comes to Jesus there is  no grey, there is no spectrum, there is only black and white. There is only day and night. You’re either living in the daylight, or your living in the night-time. Psalm 107 describes people’s salvation as being brought out of darkness, Isaiah 9:2 tells us that when Jesus comes the people living in darkness will see a great light, In Luke 1:79 we’re told that Jesus has come to rescue those who sit in darkness. Jesus Himself said in John 8:12 ‘i am the light of the world.’

And we recognize these categories from our own experiences of life don’t we? We turn on the news and we see darkness abroad. Our brothers and sisters killed for their faith, whole countries torn apart by war. We see it on our own streets, it’s hard to watch the local news without hearing of another shooting, another break in. And most of all, we see it in our own hearts. When we’re lazy in BIble reading, when we’re slow in speaking for Jesus, when we skip church, we see this darkness in our hearts.

We’re either in the light, or we’re in darkness. On the last day, those two categories are all that will matter. Are you in the darkness, or are you in the light? Are you a sheep or a goat? That was part of the reason behind Paul writing this letter to the Thessalonians. He’d only been with them a short time, and they wanted some assurance from him that they hadn’t missed the day of the Lord, and that when it came, they were going to be ok. And we should want the same assurance ourselves shouldn’t we? We should want to know, more than anything else, that we live in the day, not in the night.

Paul gives us three ways we can know here.

First of all, in verses 4 and 5, we see that if we live in the day, we have a new nature. Read those with me. Christians aren’t people who just do things differently, Christians are different. Verse 4 tells us that we’re not in darkness. In the dark you stumble over things that would be harmless in the light, in the dark you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know whose around you. In the dark you’re lost. Isn’t that a picture of us before our salvation. Enslaved to sin without even knowing it? Wandering around aimlessly, blindly, with no direction. We’re not in darkness anymore, so we desire to honour God, particularly when it comes to thinking about Christ’s return. If you’re in the dark, verse 4 tells us, that day will overtake you like a thief. Thieves work by surprise don’t they? They never send a note telling you they’re on their way! If we live in the dark, we’re not ready for Jesus to come back. He will surprise us, and there will be nothing we can do about it.

But, as verse 5 tells us, we are children of light. What a lovely phrase! We’re children, so we depend on the good care of our loving Father, and we’re in the light. We know where we’re going because the Bible lights our way. In our hearts there is no longer the darkness of sin, but the light of a new creation. Jesus has come and we see Him, and we love Him. He’s no longer boring or irrelevant, He’s beautiful to us, He’s life. We hang on His every word, we long to think His thoughts after Him, to follow His commands. We have been changed inside! CSL says that we believe in Jesus in the same way we believe in the noonday sun, not just because we see it, but because by it we see everything else. Is that your nature, your daytime nature, that you see everything by Christ?

Use Consistency When You Speak

Be consistent when you speak. That’s the message of James 3:9-12. This kind of question really gets under our skin doesn’t it? Are we consistent in the words we use? Do we have a way of talking with our friends and a way of talking with our parents and teachers? Do we have our church conversation and our home conversation? Do we talk about people behind their back? Do we put people down with our words? Are we consistent?

Verse 9 says Christians use their tongues to bless God their Father. Is that true of you? Are you using the tongue God gave you for the reason He gave it to you? Are you praising God when you talk? Are you taking opportunities with your mouth, with your words to praise the God who made you? James just assumes that this is what Christians do. Are you talking about what you’ve read in the Bible or what God is doing in your life? are you sharing prayer requests and taking the requests of others seriously? Does your heart overflow with a pleasing theme? JE said that during the revival at Northampton in the Great Awakening all the conversation in the town was about God’s work. Is that true for you?

The rest of verse 9 tells us the problem. With our tongues we bless God, and with it we curse those made in God’s image. Curse would include things like talking about people behind their back, spreading gossip about them, insulting them and putting them down. You all know how that feels from both sides. Is your tongue consistent or is it deceitful and hypocritical? For James it’s unthinkable that someone who is saved would curse a someone. As unthinkable as a fresh spring producing salt water, or olives growing on a fig tree, or figs on a grapevine. He says these things ought not be so, they’re not part of the natural order, Christians should be consistent in their speech. He’s not saying that if you get mad at someone and blurt something out that you regret right away you’re not saved, he’s saying that if you are always curing people around you, made in the image of God, you’re failing the speech test.

We all need help here don’t we? We all need help to speak cautiously and consistently. We all need forgiveness. We’ve all said things today, probably, that we wish we’d never said. We’d said things to family members and close friends we regret, things that we wish we could take back. Maybe this message makes you never want to speak again. Although in some ways that would solve the problem it’s not very practical! I hope that seeing the importance and danger of your words drives you to prayer. Using your tongues to ask God for help. I hope it provokes you to ask God to give you encouraging words, helpful words and uplifting words. I hope it makes you seek God’s mercy. Only Jesus Christ never uttered a careless word, but only Jesus died for all the words you wish you’d never said. There is hope only in Christ for our words to be cautious and consistent, let us go to Him, now, and often.